Baker Hughes has reported that the number of oil and gas rigs in the United States rose this week, bucking the downward trend of recent weeks. The number of oil rigs climbed by 9 this week, while the number of gas rigs stayed the same.
WTI and Brent have both continued a steady upward climb as the market grows bolder in believing that OPEC can rebalance the market, and after a series of surprise arrests in Saudi Arabia provided a bit of instability concerning oil supplies in the region.
The total oil and gas rig count in the United States now stands at 907 rigs, up 339 rigs from the year prior, with the number of oil rigs standing at 738 versus 452 a year ago. The number of gas rigs in the US now stands at 169, up from 115 a year ago.
Canada, too, saw an increase to oil and gas rigs, with oil rigs climbing by 8 and gas rigs climbing by 4.
The spot price for WTI and Brent have been on a run, with WTI trading up 0.05 percent at $57.20 54.72 at 11:56am EST—more than $2 up from last week. Brent crude was trading up 0.14 percent at $64.02 at that time—almost $3 over last week’s price at the same time.
Along with an increase to the number of active oil rigs, US crude oil production was up for the week ending November 3 at 9.620 million barrels per day—another new high for 2017 after reaching a high the week prior.
At 11 minutes after the hour, both benchmarks had slipped on the data release, with WTI trading at $56.83, with Brent crude trading at $63.64.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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